1991 Starting from the core

Seoul, SK Telecom headquarters.

It has just been half a year since Zhou Xiaohui took over SK Telecom.

This half year was also the half year when the country experienced a financial crisis and was reborn from "national bankruptcy". With the new leader taking office, and with the signing of various favorable terms for foreign investment in seeking help from the IMF, the country's economy has gradually embarked on the road to recovery.

However, with the rise of MP3, mobile phones and other electronic products, coupled with the impact of the financial crisis, it has inevitably affected the overall growth of the PC market business. For the semiconductor industry, which is in the midst of a cyclical winter, this is tantamount to To add insult to injury, it can be said to be the darkest period before dawn.

Therefore, before Su Yuanshan arrived, Cui Taiyuan and Zhou Xiaohui had several rounds of contacts with Hyundai Electronics, LG, etc.

…

"Su, the current situation is that Hyundai Electronics and LG know our inevitable ambition, and they intend to obtain greater benefits from the merger."

In the conference room, Cui Taiyuan and Zhou Xiaohui chatted with Su Yuanshan, who had just arrived, about the current situation.

When Su Yuanshan heard the word "ambition", he smiled and nodded.

However, since SK cooperated with Yuanxin, its ambition has become known to everyone - SK wants to become the only giant in the country's semiconductor industry, and then use the power of Yuanxin to occupy the Asian market and eventually go global.

But whether it is Yuanxin or SK, in the previous semiconductor business, there was no field of DRAM particles.

It’s just that modern memory is currently suffering from extremely serious losses, and LG has reached the point where it is almost unable to unravel the problem - Goldstar memory is the brand that LG used to enter the DRAM market before changing its name.

Zhou Xiaohui added: “And now Samsung is also in contact with LG.”

"Yeah." Su Yuanshan knew the news before he came, but in Su Yuanshan's opinion, this should be a trick for LG to raise its own value, or even a smoke bomb: "Don't panic, it's ridiculously fake."

The reason is simple. LG's memory chips are really not good - even in places like China where efforts are made to keep costs down, Goldstar's memory chips are rarely used, and they are generally used in low-end products.

On the contrary, the HY particles have been running pretty well.

Therefore, if Samsung really wants to block SK's entry into DRAM, Lee Kun-hee should obviously negotiate with Hyundai instead of LG.

Cui Taiyuan laughed: "Yes, for Samsung, LG is useless."

Su Yuanshan glanced at Cui Taiyuan and said in surprise: "Mr. Cui also knows this allusion?"

"Cao Cao, Yang Xiu." Cui Taiyuan said the names of the two historical figures in less than standard Mandarin.

"Haha, yes, LG's semiconductor department only has a certain value to us. It is useless to Samsung. It is not even considered useless."

"So the focus of our negotiations is still modern electronics."

"But what should I do if LG doesn't let go?" Cui Taiyuan smiled bitterly: "They have to ask for a minimum of 600 million U.S. dollars - the valuation we gave is 400 to 450 million U.S. dollars."

"...It's okay. I'll go to the middle and be the peacemaker. If you really don't give me face, you won't let go...then just let it fend for itself."

Su Yuanshan said with a smile.

——He is only nominally the shareholder representative of SK Telecom. It is perfect for him to be the middleman.

Moreover, Su Yuanshan rushed over in a hurry, not only for the acquisition, he also hoped to achieve broader cooperation with LG.

LG is not good at the DRAM business and seems to have no aggressiveness, but that does not mean that it is also not good at other fields and has no aggressiveness.

Looking at the fields involved, LG Electronics will be a smaller Samsung Electronics in later generations, focusing on home appliances and consumer electronics.

Especially in the field of mobile phones, Samsung is regarded as a "touch" target, so much so that in terms of functions and era, some mobile phones from both parties were once so similar as to be "twins".

Of course, after entering the smartphone era, LG Electronics was completely distanced from Samsung.

Samsung became the brand with the largest market share in the world, while LG Electronics fell step by step and eventually became the other brand.

If it were not for its LCD panel and home appliance businesses, LG Electronics would probably be the size of a township enterprise.

*

*

As a country under the influence of Confucian culture, a feast is indispensable.

That night, SK executives led Su Yuanshan and the team that went with him to deploy the ringtone business and had a good meal in the hotel. During the dinner, everyone drank and drank together, speaking Mandarin, English, and Korean. They started drinking at 7 p.m. By eleven o'clock at night.

The next day, Zhou Xiaohui came to Su Yuanshan's guest room early.

Seeing that Wen Xiaoqian was helping Su Yuanshan collect and read emails in the living room and prepare for the next schedule, she was suddenly startled.

Her expression fell in Wen Xiaoqian's eyes, causing the latter to be startled, and he asked after a while: "Mr. Zhou, what's wrong?"

"It's nothing." Zhou Xiaohui shook her head subconsciously, but still sighed softly and said with a smile: "Xiaoqian, come on."

"Um."

——These were all things she had done for Su Yuanshan before.

At this time, Su Yuanshan came out of the bathroom with a hair dryer. Seeing Zhou Xiaohui sitting beside him, he happily sat on the sofa and said, "Sister Xiaohui, help me blow my head off."

"Yeah."

…

As the hair dryer roared, Su Yuanshan's voice involuntarily became louder: "Sister Xiaohui, as you have become familiar with the situation in the past few months, it should be a little better, right?"

Since Zhou Xiaohui came to Korea, she has never returned to China except for an executive director meeting three months ago. She has always stayed here. This was the first time Su Yuanshan saw her in three months.

Last time, she told Su Yuanshan that it was a bit difficult to work here. After all, she has participated in the management of Yuanxin as a high-level person in the past few years. Although she went to SK Telecom, she was also the CEO and the actual head. Of course, to the outside world, the head of SK must be Cui Taiyuan. But because she had never set foot in the first-tier market before coming here, and because she was unfamiliar with the place, even if Cui Taiyuan was there to support her, she still felt a little powerless.

So after returning to China last time, Yuanxin invited the management of China Unicom's operation department and Yuanxin's marketing team to visit SK Telecom.

In name, it was a visit, but in reality it was to get a feel for the situation and see how to increase the market share to over 50% - currently, SK Telecom's market share is less than 50%.

"Well, much better."

Zhou Xiaohui threw away the hair dryer and simply wiped it with a towel: "But I really have to say, Korea is indeed too small..."

"Haha, although the sparrow is small, it has all the internal organs. If you put it that way, isn't HK even smaller?"

"..."

"And I can see that Cui Taiyuan's support for you is sincere - if he wants to learn from Yuanxin and enter the world with Yuanxin, he must have a CEO with outstanding vision to run SK Telecom for him, or Talk about the semiconductor and electronics business.”

"What you said made me suddenly feel a little stressed."

"Don't be afraid, just follow me." Su Yuanshan closed his eyes in enjoyment and smiled.

"Okay!" Zhou Xiaohui agreed simply.

After hesitating for a moment, she continued to ask: "Mr. Shan, what is your attitude towards the acquisition of LG Semiconductor?"

"What about you?" Su Yuanshan didn't answer, but asked instead.

"I... from the perspective of corporate development, I think that as long as the acquisition of Hyundai Electronics is reached... then it doesn't matter whether LG Semiconductor or not." Zhou Xiaohui expressed her thoughts frankly.